International News Presentation: Past and Present

is it just me or does american news always use some orchestral music piece, compared to in the UK or anywhere else...

Personally though, i prefer a more contemporary music instead of a orchestral piece.

My favourite will have to be DWTV's Journal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0lYxSK3qYU

I would say that American news music from the 1980s in particular tended to be very orchestral. Some of today's themes are a bit rock-influenced, which I don't like.

Speaking of American news intros from the 1980s, here's a great new compilation just uploaded to YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMhrnawC1B4

There are many orchestral themes here. The one at 4:42, for instance, is so orchestral that it could easily have been used in a Hollywood movie.

It's strange how British TV news generally moved away from orchestral themes during the very late 1990s/early 2000s, whereas they're still alive and kicking in the US. I think the only exception to the rule currently is Sky News, whose theme is more orchestral. BBC News and ITN have been quite keen on contemporary music from c. 2000 onwards.

I'm undecided as to which I prefer. I think the orchestral themes of the 1990s in Britain conveyed a lot of authority and were nice pieces of music to listen to. That said, the modern themes used now do bring the output up to date and sound a lot more pacey. However, they're not always all that memorable. I would love to hear the current News at Ten theme performed by an orchestra. I think Dave Hewson did a good job considering it is synthesised but I think for that theme in particular, an orchestra would make it sound much better.

More:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rxNdvUNmrQ

As we've mentioned before, Sky News' first-ever theme was called the Great News Package:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N7kPK6L8Z4 (1989)

The same music was used by many different broadcasters. (In fact, you can hear some of them in the compilations mentioned above).

This TV station in Rochester, NY, however, used a particularly interesting cut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOvAeS5TTYQ

Speaking of news music, a television station in San Jose, California, used the hit song "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" as its theme music in the 1980s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpHzCGOGuko

Here's what local television news in Hawaii looks like (2008):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQSeU07Rb9o

Here's a compilation of current and recent news intros used by Canale 5 in Italy (the news operation is known as TG5):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ-q_xi8LNs

Another San Francisco station's coverage of the same earthquake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7-I-IHX24E

Half a world away, here's how Swiss television covered this major earthquake:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRgTP9lerHU

Here's a fascinating compilation of news intros used by WKYC in Cleveland from the mid-1970s...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v302/az2si/wkyc1.jpg

...until 2008:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v302/az2si/wkyc2.jpg

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thgsyG4L_t0

Hier ist Das Erste Deutsche Fernsehen mit der Tagesschau, in HD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qcfcPOD5zA

not exactly

It's: Hier ist das erste deutsche Fernsehen mit der Tagesschau (in HD)

Translation: Here is the first German Television (aka ARD) with the "Tagesschau"